Week 4:

I decided this week to spend another week on Vishen Lakhani's 6-phase guided meditation from Omvana.com. I didn't really feel I had gotten everything I could have out of it. I felt some success with the first phase, which is compassion, but phases 2-5 were difficult because they involved recalling certain things and people from the past and envisioning the future and goal- setting. The six phases again are:

1. Compassion

2. Gratitude

3. Forgiveness

4. Future Dreaming

5. Perfect Day

6. Blessing

I decided I would actually do some pre-meditation visualization about phases 2-5 before I began my meditation, so I took them one at a time.

Phase 2: Gratitude:

According to Vishen, gratitude is the strongest link to mental wellbeing and happiness. Most of us are victims of "the gap". We have decided that to be happy we need to hit some future set of goals. Once we hit these goals, we can be happy. Once we arrive at that point, we realize that we're not really happy. We feel a need to look ahead again, set more goals, arrive at them, and THEN we'll be happy. Vishen says we should really be looking at the "reverse gap". The reverse gap is gratitude. We need to look at where we were and how far we've come. This is the way to be happy, and our brains perform best when we're happy.

People who embrace gratitude have been shown to have more energy, higher emotional intelligence, less depression, and more feelings of being socially connected. Practicing gratitude is an easy way to immediately boost happiness levels.

Vishen's phase on gratitude asks you to think about 3- 5 things you are grateful for in your personal life, your job, and about yourself. Because this was difficult for me, I ended up making a list of things in these areas and referring to it before I meditated.

Phase 3: Forgiveness:

For this phase, I also made a small list of people I need to forgive and that I would ask to forgive me. This was easier- I didn't need to think too hard to pick out people to forgive.

Forgiving becomes easier if we consider what is called "primary attribution error." PAE occurs when we attribute another person's actions to their personality, or their personal feelings toward us, rather than the situation the person acting toward us finds themselves in.  Combined with the natural human tendency to be on the alert to threats to our own safety, the primary attribution error makes it very easy to feel threatened or to take offense when none was intended. Evidence has shown that a person's actions toward another are far more influenced by situational factors than we tend to believe.

Phase 4: Envisioning the Future:

In this phase, Vishen asks you to envision your life three years in the future. Where do you want to be then? He says we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in one year, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in three years. A good goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot. He suggests organizing future goals into the areas of experiences, growth (new skills, languages, fitness levels, etc.) and contributions.

I've never been much of a goal- driven person, so this was hard for me. Again, I made a list to refer to before meditating. I picked some goals that were within my control and current abilities, and some that I have no idea how I will accomplish.

Phase 5: Envisioning the Perfect Day:

This phase involves envisioning what to you would be the perfect day, from sunrise to sundown. I made a list for this phase too.

Vishen is careful to point out that successful envisioning needs to involve all 5 senses. What does your perfect day smell like? What does your future taste like?  Interesting questions. I think my future tastes like waffles and bacon. Maybe country fried steak, eaten without guilt.

Wednesday was the first time I tried the guided meditation having studied my list first. It was much more rewarding to go through the phases having prepared by studying my list first. Having these things fresh in my mind made it easier to think of other things, especially for the gratitude category.

I noticed a tangible lift to my spirits and my mental state following my meditation that day. The boost to my mood lasted for an hour or more. I went for a walk in the neighborhood after that. I introduced myself to a new neighbor and chatted for a minute, retrieved a ball from the street for some school kids and talked to them for a minute, and generally felt happy. I would say it was my best meditation session yet. For someone who struggles with depression, to feel "up" for even an hour or two is very valuable.

I consider myself a religious person and have prayed all my life in a specific way, that being to address God, thank Him for blessings, ask Him for what is needed, and then to end the prayer. It's easy to fall into rote repetitions with this method since I've been doing it since I was a child.

I think my experience with this 6- phase meditation, especially Wednesday, might be a more effective way of praying. The final phase of the meditation, after you have extended compassion and forgiveness to others, thought about specific things you are grateful for, and envisioned your goals and perfect day, is to call down the blessings and affirmation of a higher power (or your own inner strength) to make these things come true! What a great way to pray!

I'm thinking of my next meditation goals in terms of what we've learned in class about expert knowledge versus amateur knowledge. I'd like to try a different guided meditation, but in searching YouTube for interesting possibilities, I got over 1,000,000 results! The possibilities for where to go next are mind- boggling.

Expert knowledge about meditation would allow me to focus on principles I want to achieve and identify patterns across a domain of information and knowledge. As a novice, my efforts are still just hit-or-miss. What's the best way to go from being a novice meditator to an expert in 4 weeks or less? Maybe I need to do more research on the principles of meditation.

I still need to find a meditation community I'm comfortable with for some feedback and learning reinforcement, although I felt like I did pretty well on my own this week.